Curious about what a Conversion Scientist does? This may help. Though I've given better interviews in my life, I think Vanessa's poise more than makes up for my blathering.
Slides from my PubCon South 2009 presentation are at What to Test? The Conversion Scientist.
An article I coauthored just landed in the Bulldog Marketing Watchdog Journal. There is an opportunity out there, an opportunity created by panicked competitors making bad decisions about what to cut in anticipation of slowing sales.
The second installment is
Scarcity Breeds Industry: Where Should You Be Putting Your Marketing Dollars in 2009?
The first article was:
Five Ways to Gain a Competitive Advantage—While Everyone Else Is Panicking
I may be off base, but my colleagues, Joel Granoff and Rose Holston (both appear in the header of The Conversion Scientist blog) are too smart to be dismissed offhand.
Tell us what you think in the comments here.
Brian Massey
While I've decided not to participate in the recession, that doesn't mean that things won't be different for me in 2009. My clients' competitors -- and yours -- are totally bought into the recession and will be making some bad decisions.
This is good news for you and for me.
I detail some of the mistakes your competition is going to make this year in an article I co-wrote for Bulldog Solutions. Check out Five Ways to Gain a Competitive Advantage While Everyone Else is Panicking.
The third recommendation we offer in that article is "Concentrate on programs that move prospects through the sales funnel." Behavioral Targeting is just one of the strategies you should consider to snatch customers from your competitors. The second entry in my Behavioral Marketing column for ClickZ includes a riff on what behavioral marketers can learn from the simple action of visiting a Web page. I've recorded a Behavioral Targeting Lullaby inspired by George Carlin.
I did a bit of a rant on my profile over on the Society for Word of Mouth community. I was sitting at the Wizard Academy, a school of communication that has been predicting a change in culture that would transform the way we communicate. Ray Seggern was doing a presentation called "The Pendulum" made famous by Wizard Academy founder Roy H. Williams. It's the kind of presentation that sticks with you for weeks after you see it.
One thing that Roy puts forth very convincingly is that the Internet and it's sibling technologies are a tool of change more than a cause of change.
This is a pretty scary thought.
Why? Because, if it's the Internet that is causing the kids to act so funny, then we can keep an eye on it. If it's just a symptom of the change, then something more nefarious is going on, something that may sneak up on us. Either way, you can't opt out. It'll get you too.
Are you going to be surprised? Visit the Wizard Academy on March 13th a free day of mind bending clarity. It's about communicating fully and so much more.
We've begun a conversation over on the Bootstrap Austin blog that I hope you'll join. I tried to come up with examples of businesses leveraging the six "Generatives" that Kevin Kelly discusses in his interesting manifesto "Better Than Free."
This is where you come in. I wasn't really able to tease too many examples out of my head. How does your business takes advantage of one or more of his generatives?
Let us know by commenting on the Bootstrap Austin blog.
